The present invention relates to a surgical sealing element, in particular, for a trocar and/or for sealing shafts of elongated surgical instruments during insertion into a human or animal body, wherein the sealing element defines a longitudinal axis, is provided with an opening, which is variable in diameter and oriented transversely or essentially transversely to the longitudinal axis and through which an instrument can be inserted, and comprises a flexible wall which is closed annularly, wherein the wall has a first and a second edge, each closed upon itself, and wherein the first edge limits the opening.
Furthermore, the present invention relates to a surgical seal, in particular, for a trocar and/or for sealing shafts of elongated surgical instruments during insertion into a human or animal body, wherein the seal comprises a first sealing element which defines a longitudinal axis, is provided with an opening, which is variable in diameter and oriented transversely or essentially transversely to the longitudinal axis and through which an instrument can be inserted, and comprises a first flexible wall which is closed annularly, wherein the first wall has a first and a second edge, each closed upon itself, and wherein the first edge limits the opening.
In addition, the present invention relates to a surgical sealing system for the insertion of surgical instruments into a human or animal body, preferably along a longitudinal axis defined by the sealing system, comprising a trocar which has an insertion opening and a surgical sealing element which closes the insertion opening at least partially and has an opening, the sealing element sealing the insertion opening during insertion of an instrument into the opening.
During endoscopic operations on the human or animal body, the body is often filled with a gas, which is physiologically safe and subject to a slight overpressure, for the purpose of expanding the operation site. So that the body can then be kept in a somewhat swollen state without having to replenish the gas to any excessively great extent, surgical sealing systems of the type described at the outset are, for example, used. They are normally designed in the form of a trocar which has two seals. One of the seals undertakes the sealing of the access point, i.e., an insertion opening of the trocar for as long as no instrument is inserted. An additional seal serves the purpose of sealing a shaft of the instrument inserted completely at its circumference in order to prevent any loss of gas as a result of the instruments inserted.
Since, for endoscopic procedures, instruments with different shaft diameters are used, seals with different inner diameters are normally utilized. In order to reliably seal instrument shafts with diameters in a range of 5 mm to 15 mm, different seals with inner diameters in a range of 3 mm to 12 mm are, for example, used. Seals with inner diameters of 3, 5, 10 and 12 mm inner diameter in the non-extended state are used, in particular. It is, therefore, necessary in many cases to provide several access points with trocars which have seals adapted to different instrument shaft diameters or also to replace the seals during a surgical procedure.
An object underlying the present invention is, therefore, to improve a surgical sealing element, a surgical seal as well as a surgical sealing system of the type described at the outset such that all instruments currently available can be reliably sealed irrespective of the diameter of their instrument shaft.